'What is your regular starting outfield makeup? And who sits on the pine?'

I just love the depth. Play the hot hand until it cools off or injuries force a change.

Lefties versus righties platooning doesn't always do it for me. When a hitter is in a groove, he's in a groove, and sitting him against certain pitchers, even for just one game can often disrupt his timing.

'What is your regular starting outfield makeup? And who sits on the pine?'

I just love the depth. Play the hot hand until it cools off or injuries force a change.

Lefties versus righties platooning doesn't always do it for me. When a hitter is in a groove, he's in a groove, and sitting him against certain pitchers, even for just one game can often disrupt his timing.

Send a message to Nap it's not okay to strike out 3 X in games more than several times no matter what type of power you exhibit. The same thing should be true for Drew, Salty and Ross along with any other players. Watch these guys in replays of their swings-seldom are they watching the ball--they are looking down the line or at the pitcher.

See the ball hit the ball--simple taught at every level. If you can't do that sit and the GM's job is to find a player that can make contact.

'What is your regular starting outfield makeup? And who sits on the pine?'

I just love the depth. Play the hot hand until it cools off or injuries force a change.

Lefties versus righties platooning doesn't always do it for me. When a hitter is in a groove, he's in a groove, and sitting him against certain pitchers, even for just one game can often disrupt his timing.

AB AVE HR OBP SLG OPS

CARP (L) 94 .330 6 .373 .660 1.032

NAVA (S/H) 211 .299 9 .391 .479 .870

ELLSBURY (L) 258 .283 1 .355 .391 .747

VICTORINO (S/H) 142 .282 2 .340 .359 .699

GOMES (R) 116 .207 3 .336 .336 .672

I would like to see Carp play more at first base against righties.

He's definitely earned some more playing time. With Carp's ability to play LF, Ben's done a fine job providing flexibility. Against righties, we can have 7 lefty hitters and v lefties, we can have 7 righties.

LF Gomes, CF Victorino, RF Carp seems like the offensive OF by the numbers, but Ellsbury is going to start pretty much FT, so one has to sit.

As much as it looks like there is a logjam in the OF, when you look at the splits, you can see some weak spots.

Here's a position by position breakdown of our OPS as compared to the AL as a whole:

BOS / AL Differential

C: .807/ .725 +82

1B: .805/ .786 +19

2B: .862/ .684 +178

3B: .740/ .739 +1

SS: .785/ .666 +119

LF: .816/ .744 +72

CF: .709/ .734 -25

RF: .802/ .728 +74

DH: .985/ .766 +219

In theory, offensively speaking, our CF position is our worst comparative position, however, Ellsbury has heated up and is himself at .747, which is 13 points above the AL average CF'er OPS. 3B looks like our other weak spot, but with Iggy added to the mix, maybe those numbers can come up as well.

It's no surprise our top positions are DH, 2B, but the big SS and Catcher differentials are nice to see.

LF Gomes, CF Victorino, RF Carp seems like the offensive OF by the numbers, but Ellsbury is going to start pretty much FT, so one has to sit.

As much as it looks like there is a logjam in the OF, when you look at the splits, you can see some weak spots.

Here's a position by position breakdown of our OPS as compared to the AL as a whole:

BOS / AL Differential

C: .807/ .725 +82

1B: .805/ .786 +19

2B: .862/ .684 +178

3B: .740/ .739 +1

SS: .785/ .666 +119

LF: .816/ .744 +72

CF: .709/ .734 -25

RF: .802/ .728 +74

DH: .985/ .766 +219

In theory, offensively speaking, our CF position is our worst comparative position, however, Ellsbury has heated up and is himself at .747, which is 13 points above the AL average CF'er OPS. 3B looks like our other weak spot, but with Iggy added to the mix, maybe those numbers can come up as well.

It's no surprise our top positions are DH, 2B, but the big SS and Catcher differentials are nice to see.

As much as it looks like there is a logjam in the OF, when you look at the splits, you can see some weak spots.

In greater detail...

vs RHPs, only Ellsbury and Nava have an OPS over .800 since 2010. The 3rd best guy is Carp, who is doing great, but can hardly be counted on to continue at this pace or to field any OF position in a decent manner. When we signed Victorino, I warned the board about his low numbers vs RHPs. The fact that we play against RHPs about 65% of the time, I did not think $13M x 3 was warranted for a player that could be considered a platoon player on the short end of the platoon (unlike Crawford, who had horrible splits vs LHPs). Shan'es .726 OPS so far this year vs RHPs is not much better than his .703 3+ year number of .703, and it remains to be seen if Farrell will continue playing SV against almost all RHPs, if Carp & Nava keep raking righties.

vs LHPs, it is clear we have big weaknesses in many areas of this team. Victorino and Gomes are off to a slow starts vs LHPs, but their recent 3+ year numbers suggest they may turn that around soon. It's hard to imagine Carp keeping up this pace vs lefties, but it is possible he has found his stride, his team, his park, and his time to bust out. Ellsbury's .680 and .741 numbers are not impressive, but he did hit lefties well in 2011, so maybe there is hope there as well.

It seems like we may be 2 slumps away from having two weak spots in the OF (1 vs RHPs and 1 vs LHPs) at least by using OPS as a standard, despite the "logjam".

Cannot understand what's happened to Victorino's hitting, especially vs. lefties. Even before his injuries he wasn't producing much offensively.

In parks with smaller outfields I'd play Carp a lot more in of, plus maybe once a week at first.

Re : strikeouts....inevitable tradeoff with power hitting, with very few exceptions ( Williams, DiMaggio, to a lesser extent Ortiz). Wouldn't ask successful M.L. hitters to change much now.

Starting to lose patience with Drew, and two or three weeks ago (when Iggy was showing attitude problems in Pawtucket ) I was ready to talk extension for him. Let's hope too much bench time doesn't bottle up Iglesias's magic hitting streak.

I never said I wanted that OF; I just said that by the offensive numbers, they both are in the top 3 vs LHPs. I actually stated that Ellsbury was not going to be benched, so one would have to sit vs LHPs.

Vs RHPs, I stated that SV would play, so a better hitter would have to sit as well.

My point was, that by looking at the splits, there is really no "logjam". We have 3 clearly better hitters than the rest, but we will probably not play the 3 best hitters very often, due to fielding issues and the fact that Ellsbury and SV are both paid too much to be benched very often.

So, we end up playing Ellsbury vs LHPs despite his .682/.741 splits (2013/2010-2013 OPS numbers), and we end up playing SV vs RHPs, despite his .726/.702 OPS numbers. The defense is improved. A couple of egos are protected, and we have a nice PH'er off the bench.

Deciding who to bench when playing Ellsbury vs LHPs and SV vs RHPs is a bit problematic. Versus RHPs, it has to be Nava or Carp who are both killing RHPs. Personally, I'd bench SV for now, so these two hot hands can keep playing. Versus LHPs, I think you have to play SV in hopes he regains his great numbers vs lefties. Same with Gomes. Since Ellsbury is heating it up, he should play in CF. That means benching Nava who has not hit lefties well this year or over his career and Carp, who has a very small sample size this year to judge by. I don't see there being a big issue vs LH'd starters, unless you think Nava's ego will be bruised by sitting him in about 35% of our games. The real issue is vs RH'd starters: it seems both Nava and Carp should play in these games until they prove they don't deserve it. Maybe Carp can play some 1B or DH vs RHPs, but I don't see that happening much. The only way to get both to play a lot is by benching SV vs most RH'd starters. I doubt that is going to happen.

I never said I wanted that OF; I just said that by the offensive numbers, they both are in the top 3 vs LHPs. I actually stated that Ellsbury was not going to be benched, so one would have to sit vs LHPs.

Vs RHPs, I stated that SV would play, so a better hitter would have to sit as well.

My point was, that by looking at the splits, there is really no "logjam". We have 3 clearly better hitters than the rest, but we will probably not play the 3 best hitters very often, due to fielding issues and the fact that Ellsbury and SV are both paid too much to be benched very often.

So, we end up playing Ellsbury vs LHPs despite his .682/.741 splits (2013/2010-2013 OPS numbers), and we end up playing SV vs RHPs, despite his .726/.702 OPS numbers. The defense is improved. A couple of egos are protected, and we have a nice PH'er off the bench.

Deciding who to bench when playing Ellsbury vs LHPs and SV vs RHPs is a bit problematic. Versus RHPs, it has to be Nava or Carp who are both killing RHPs. Personally, I'd bench SV for now, so these two hot hands can keep playing. Versus LHPs, I think you have to play SV in hopes he regains his great numbers vs lefties. Same with Gomes. Since Ellsbury is heating it up, he should play in CF. That means benching Nava who has not hit lefties well this year or over his career and Carp, who has a very small sample size this year to judge by. I don't see there being a big issue vs LH'd starters, unless you think Nava's ego will be bruised by sitting him in about 35% of our games. The real issue is vs RH'd starters: it seems both Nava and Carp should play in these games until they prove they don't deserve it. Maybe Carp can play some 1B or DH vs RHPs, but I don't see that happening much. The only way to get both to play a lot is by benching SV vs most RH'd starters. I doubt that is going to happen.

I heard the "good chemistry" argument. I know he is a good fielder for Fenway's RF. However, when you have had such poor splits vs RHPs since 2010 and over his career as a whole, it just made little sense to choose him as the one guy we sign for 3 years. We face RH'd starters aboiut 65% of the time, so we are essentially paying SV $13M a year for 35% of the games.

I'd personally only play Vic against r/h on road in Denver, Seattle, any other parks with huge outfields; and as defensive replacement.

Agreed.

Don't foresee Farrell benching Ellsbury vs. lefties, although a platoon in cf. might make most sense.

Ellsbury is hitting well right now, and has shown some success vs LHPs in recent years (2011), so I can at least understand him staying in the line-up FT with his rest days scheduled vs LH'd starters.

So Carp-Ellsbury-Nava ivs.r/h in most parks; and Gomes-Ells-Vic vs.l/h.

Papi sometimes struggles vs LHPs, and Napoli usually does about 50 points better in OPS vs LHPs, but that has not been the case this year (he's 160 pts higher vs RHPs this year). I guess to give Carp PAs vs LHPs, which I am not sure he deserves, we could use him when we rest Ellsbury, Napoli and Papi vs LHPs, but that should not be very often.

As stated before, it seems a shame to be paying Victorino $13M x 3 years to sit for over 60% of the games, but that is what it looks like we should do, at least if and until Carp or Nava slump badly.